Equal Pay and Social Justice: Women’s Agency, Trade Union Action and International Regulations. Italy, the ILO and the EEC in the Global Context (1951–1977)

Abstract

1 The study builds on the international scholarship on equal pay as a global struggle, which peaked in the so-called Golden Age of the twentieth century but continued to be highly relevant in the decades following the UN International Women’s Year and nowadays as well. The debate and struggle for equal pay in Cold War Italy is investigated as a case study useful to understanding how the very concepts of equality and social justice were put into practice with regard to women workers. The specificity of the Italian context is investigated within a comparative perspective, which unveils how equal pay struggles connect different geopolitical spaces. In addition to the international scholarship, the article draws on parliamentary speeches, conference proceedings and archival material produced by women’s associations, trade unions, employers’ associations, the Italian government, the European Economic Community and the International Labour Organization. Particular attention is also devoted to the biographies of Italian women involved in the thirty-year struggle for equal pay and equality rights, which also played a role at the European and international level.